Cosmic Star Formation – theory and observations, from the first galaxies to the Milky Way
Cosmic Star Formation
William Herschel was the first person to realise that stars form out of interstellar gas, writing in 1811: “When we reflect upon these circumstances, we may conceive that, perhaps in progress of time these nebulae which are already in such a state of compression, may be still farther condensed so as actually to become stars.”
Since the launch of the Herschel Space Observatory ten years ago, astronomers have made huge strides in deepening William Herschel’s original insight, first with the observatory itself and more latterly with the Atacama Large Millimetre array and with the legacy surveys being carried out with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. We can now study the physics of star formation over most of the history of the Universe, from the young stars in the molecular clouds around us today to stars born billions of years in the past when the galaxies themselves were first forming. At the same time, numerical simulations include increasingly complex microphysics and feedback prescriptions, enabling physically sophisticated simulations of star formation regions, and of their impact on the larger-scale interstellar, circumgalactic and intergalactic media.
This workshop will consider star-formation physics both at low redshift and high redshift and will include contributions from observers and theorists. Some of the topics the workshop will cover include: (1) the galactic context of star formation and feedback; (2) the link between galactic structure, ISM conditions, and the efficiency of star formation, including the reason why the star-formation efficiency seems to change with redshift; (3) star formation in extreme environments, such as in dwarfs, starbursts, around AGN and within outflows; (4) the possible connections between nearby low-metallicity star-forming regions and star-formation physics in the early universe; (5) the role of magnetic fields, cloud/cloud collisions and filaments in structuring the ISM and triggering/suppressing star formation; (6) feedback from low- and high-mass stars and compact stellar remnants, and its possible impact on quenching the star formation in galaxies.
Schedule:
Session 1
13:00 Doris Arzoumanian “Star formation in filamentary molecular clouds”
13:30 Alex Richings “The effects of local stellar radiation on non-equilibrium ISM chemistry and ISM line diagnostics”
13:42 David Whitworth “Variations in star formation in low metallicity dwarf galaxy simulations.”
13:54 Francisco Rodriguez Montero “Cosmic rays, explosions and galaxy formation: the deposition of momentum in the ISM and their influence in star formation”
14:06 David Kinson “Massive young stellar objects in the Local Group irregular galaxy NGC 6822 identified using machine learning”
14:18 Nimisha Kumari “Diffuse background and local Schmidt relation in the nearby spiral galaxies”
Session 2
13:00 Clare Dobbs “Galactic star formation” (Invited)
13:24 Poster Presenters “Posters - Tuesday”
13:30 Jindra Gensior “The Elephant in the Bathtub: When the physics of star formation regulate the baryon cycle of galaxies”
13:42 James Trussler “A global and spatially-resolved view of galaxy quenching”
13:54 Joanna Piotrowska “Observations and simulations agree: Central galaxies quench due to the integrated effect of historic AGN feedback”
14:06 Asa Bluck “The quenching of star formation in galaxies, bulges & disks from cosmic noon to the present era”
14:18 Massissilia Hamadouche “The evolution of the galaxy size-mass relation from z = 0.7 to z = 1.2”
Session 3
09:30 Tracy Garratt “The Cosmic Evolution of Molecular Gas Mass Density probed by Dust Emission”
09:42 Lukas Furtak "The low-mass end turnover -- New measurements of the low-mass z~6-7 galaxy stellar mass function"
09:54 Robert Yates “Are the cosmic SFRD and cosmic metal density (ZD) incompatible?: Insights from cosmological simulations”
10:06 David Sobral “Lyman-alpha in emission as an empirically calibrated SFR indicator: is it useful and what are the physical implications?”
10:18 Joseph Cairns “A Pilot Study into the Nature of 500 Micron Risers”
Sam Geen, Jason Matthew Kirk, Steve Eales, Freeke van de Voort, Timothy Davis, Felix Priestley, Anthony Whitworth, Derek Wark-Thompson, Matt Griffin, Matthew Smith, George Bendo, Rowan Smith, Ahmad Ali, Kate Pattle
Monday and Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday morning
All attendees are expected to show respect and courtesy to other attendees and staff, and to adhere to the NAM Code of Conduct.